


stay awake through summer like we own the heat

by galacticAcolyte (coffee_goth)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ambiguous Teenage Nonsense, Fluff, Gen, I don't even know what this is really, Pale Polyamory, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, beta kids - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2195217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffee_goth/pseuds/galacticAcolyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she thinks that this is what being seventeen is about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stay awake through summer like we own the heat

**Author's Note:**

> for michael & andrew & chloe.

_i'm gonna stay eighteen forever so we can stay like this forever and we'll never miss a party cause we keep them going constantly and we'll never have to listen to anyone about anything cause it's all been done and it's all been said we're the coolest kids and we take what we can get_

_**-[soco amaretto lime, brand new](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Yyf50-s9I)** _

it is 8:23 pm when the train door creaks open with a metallic clang, belching a gust of humid summer air into the metal tube they've been stuck in for seven hours hurtling along the west coast with only shitty coffee and each other for a distraction. they are waiting in the space between cars for the moment the train jerks to a stop—they have been for fifteen minutes, counting each one down anxiously, both overeager even if they won’t admit it, and they are the first ones on the platform the second that first hot breath hits them.

rose is a little crestfallen when she searches the crowd and doesn’t find familiar faces, when everyone else runs up to their family and she feels a little bit like they’ve been robbed of that movie scene reunion but it’s okay because she knows they’ll be here soon and they’ll all be together again and it’ll be okay, everything will be okay, they’re both scatterbrained and it’s why she loves them after all.

dave is flicking through a newspaper somebody left on the bench and rose looks up at the sky, dusky and streaked with indigo and the first hints of stars beginning to peek through and it’s so clear here, nothing like the light pollution back home, it’s like magic. she can see orion and libra and andromeda and all the others that she’d named to the rest of them when they were lying on their backs in the grass months ago, jade’s hair fanned out over dave’s stomach and john’s leg pressed against hers’ and dave’s head on her shoulder and her fingers absently stroking patterns on jade’s ankle. they’d talked about the day the sun would burn out and how they’d all be long long dead by then but when she’s with them somehow death doesn’t scare rose anymore.

the platform’s nearly empty and she’s beginning to worry when a blue car rolls into the lot, fuming and rattling with age and rose can barely get out the word ‘look’ before the passenger door is open and jade is running across the pavement and rose drops her bag and then she has her arms around her, nose pressed up against jade’s bare shoulder, lips smiling against her sunburned skin and she hears john’s voice and it is like coming home.

“hey,” she says, and jade hums and holds her tighter and rose says “missed you” and it’s only two words and it barely means anything but she knows that they understand.

she trades jade’s warm soft embrace for john’s, reaching up on her tiptoes and laughing as she tries to stretch her arms around his neck—has he gotten taller? is that possible?—and next to her dave is babbling to jade about the train ride “seven fucking hours how many goddamn trees are there in this state” and john’s car is idling in the background and the exhaust fumes are making her dizzy and john lets her go and she smiles up at him and he smiles back. she missed that smile so much and now everything is right again.

“let’s go home,” says john, and they pile into his tiny ancient car and the full moon overhead is impossibly bright and the night is filled with hope and starlight.

*

they’ve never actually been to john’s home before. it’s a decently sized house in the suburbs of a miniature city, cookie cutter perfect like the rest of his neighborhood, and they settle down into the spare room, all of them tired but not enough to care. they cram themselves onto the old futon and tangle their legs in each others’ and remember what it’s like to be together. rose stares at john, half to see how long she can go before he notices and half because she’s so fucking _glad_ to see him again and it’s ridiculous she missed him, how much she missed all of them, it’s not like she hadn’t ever seen them before, but somehow they are all different in this context, free of every responsibility except the ones imposed by time. the end of summer is looming but tonight there’s infinity between now and september, infinity between the moment she stepped off the train and the moment she’ll inevitably have to step back on. she cuddles closer to jade, half in her lap now, and jade laughs and puts her head on rose’s shoulder and rose’s blood fizzes like it’s carbonated with stars.

they play stupid card games and make stupid perverted jokes, john and dave cracking up like the idiot teenage boys they are at every mention of sex while rose and jade hold back giggles, and they lose themselves in a sea of inside jokes so convoluted they all forgot how they started but it doesn’t matter now because they all understand them regardless. they dance around the sensitive topics because it’s not nearly late enough for the emotional shit to start—rose knows it’ll come later but now it’s time for her to relearn the exact way each of them laughs, jade’s high bright peals and dave’s quick snorting chuckles and the way that john’s face slowly crumples before his shoulders silently shake as he collapses into mirth. they abandon the game after a while and turn the tv on low and john grabs jade’s guitar and starts plucking out a tune and rose watches him from the foot of the bed. dave presses his feet to her calf and she can feel every individual callus. jade weaves tiny braids into her hair and then picks them apart.

it gets late and the hours spill over into early morning and suddenly it’s two am, her favorite time of day, and the conversation turns like she knew it would and now everything is fair game but it’s okay because she trusts them implicitly like she’s never trusted anyone else in her life, not even her family, and for once she doesn’t have to awkwardly dodge the questions she doesn’t want to answer and it’s okay because they’re all fucked up, all of them in beautiful horrible different ways  and it doesn’t matter that some days rose doesn’t eat and dave’s still struggling with his transition and john’s hopelessly in love with some girl with a boyfriend and jade’s barely holding off the pressure of school and life because for now it’s all okay. for now they are all okay.

for now they are lying together in the dim light until rose gets up to turn off the lamp and then the only light comes from the window, enough to paint slanted bars across their feet all tangled up in the same itchy wool blanket and it’s so hot, their skin is summer-sticky and they are so close that rose can’t tell where she ends and they start. she doesn’t know whose hand she is holding, whose arm is draped over her shoulders, whose leg is intertwined with her own and their whispers mingle in the darkness and she feels so incredibly safe on the twin size mattress in the basement with the three people she loves the most, with the only people she can really talk to, no filter and no lies just raw trust and she thinks that this is what being seventeen is about. she is vulnerable here but they all are because they know that for once in their lives they aren’t going to get burned.

“i love you” she whispers into the warm dead air and she doesn’t think anyone hears but it doesn’t even matter because she knows that they know it anyway and that’s what really matters.


End file.
